Income Taxes & Refunds

[Captain Ice]

Why should we trust our employer to do it?

Individual returns vary immensely. To be considered in the equation are things such as kids, medical expenses, and home loans. All are tax deductible in the US and no one other than the individual concerned has access to this information.

 

[Gryffindorian]

I've finished my taxes now and I should be getting about $2,400 from the federal government and about $60 from the state, yay!

Good for you! I used to get that much when I owned a house and could itemize. Now I just rent.

 

[Kommander]

I just did mine this morning, I'm getting $300 from Federal and $50 from state. Typically I get back $300 - 1000.

I used TurboTax Online the first year or two I did taxes, but switched to TaxAct Online because TurboTax stopped being free apparently. This year TaxAct was completely free, usually they charge me a bit to E-file my state return. I prepare my own tax returns because they're simple, and I learned how to fill the hell out of form 1040EZ in my high school economics class. Doing federal, state, and FAFSA took me like 45 minutes; it's not worth paying someone else to do. I will most likely continue to do my own taxes unless they become more complicated and I don't have time to do them myself, or doing them right becomes more important than getting my refund, which I usually need desperately. Especially this year. The college I was going to canceled my financial aid for too many attempted credits, including a loan that I was counting on.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Completely off topic, Kommander, love the AV

On topic, got my W2 yesterday. Pretty quick this year.

 

[RoJoHen]

We're undergoing a remodel at work, so many of our employees are temporarily without jobs or have had their hours significantly cut back. As a result, we got our W-2s the first week of January so that people would have the chance to file early and live off their refunds for the next 3-4 weeks.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Just out of curiosity - why in the US do employees do their own tax returns?

Who else is going to do it?

 

[RoJoHen]

Just out of curiosity - why in the US do employees do their own tax returns?

Who else is going to do it?

I was kinda wondering that myself. I mean, employers still have to file taxes about their employees' income, but it doesn't stop there. Individuals have a lot of other factors that can play into their tax returns (buying a house, having kids, student loans, etc.).

 

[Tora Ziyal]

Just out of curiosity - why in the US do employees do their own tax returns?

Who else is going to do it?

I was just about to ask the same thing. The only options are to do it yourself or hire a professional. The employer can't do it, because your income may not all come from a single employer. Or you might have investment income but no employer, or both. And so on...

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Just out of curiosity - why in the US do employees do their own tax returns?

Because your employer possesses very little information about you other than how much they paid you and how much in taxes they collected for the IRS.

Since there are thousands of things that you could use as tax deductions or tax credits, it's totally impractical for employers to handle it, and not something they should be doing in the first place.

Much of this is down to the US having a very complex income tax code.

 

[mimic]

I'm going to owe about $700 the feds; I'll get about $60 back from the state.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Just out of curiosity - why in the US do employees do their own tax returns?

Because your employer possesses very little information about you other than how much they paid you and how much in taxes they collected for the IRS.

Since there are thousands of things that you could use as tax deductions or tax credits, it's totally impractical for employers to handle it, and not something they should be doing in the first place.

Much of this is down to the US having a very complex income tax code.

Much more than impractical, I've never heard of any employer having anything to do with this, outside of making sure deductions are made.

 

[Kommander]

Completely off topic, Kommander, love the AV

What? Lacuna Coil is totally related to doing taxes... somehow. I'm sure of it.

Ah! I was listening to Lacuna Coil, among other music, as I was completing mine. That's how they're related.

On topic, got my W2 yesterday. Pretty quick this year.

Mine was pretty quick too. Usually I have more than one W2 or 1099, one source likes to drag their ass in getting them out, and I have to wait until the first few days of February. This year I only had one, but I was expecting them to take their time.

Just out of curiosity - why in the US do employees do their own tax returns?

Because your employer possesses very little information about you other than how much they paid you and how much in taxes they collected for the IRS.

Since there are thousands of things that you could use as tax deductions or tax credits, it's totally impractical for employers to handle it, and not something they should be doing in the first place.

Much of this is down to the US having a very complex income tax code.

With most of the employers I've had, I barely trust them to give me the pay checks that have been agreed to, let alone trust them to do my taxes.

 

[JoeZhang]

Just out of curiosity - why in the US do employees do their own tax returns?

Who else is going to do it?

In the UK, if you are part of the PAYE system (Pay as you earn) you never touch a tax return, tax is collected by your employer as you are paid and you get a record at the end of the year to check if it is correct. If there are additional deductions or claimable expenses, you fill out a form and sent that direct to the inland revenue (our tax agency) but the vast majority of people don't have this and never do this.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

^ We have taxes deducted from our paychecks, too, but it doesn't always come out to the right amount at the end of the year because of all the complications that several of us have mentioned.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ And because a lot of us own stock - the dividends and capital gains are taxable of course. How would this "PAYE" handle that?

 

[JoeZhang]

^ And because a lot of us own stock - the dividends and capital gains are taxable of course. How would this "PAYE" handle that?

Separate thing, you'd fill in a form in the same way you guys do - I was just talking about income as an employee.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ And how many people, in or out of the UK, really have income ONLY from that one source? Probably not a lot.

 

[JoeZhang]

^ And how many people, in or out of the UK, really have income ONLY from that one source? Probably not a lot.

PAYE? The vast majority - only about ten million people in UK do their own tax return (what we call self-assessment) and they will be largely self-employed - home ownership doesn't carry any allowances in the sense you guys are talking about it, the vast majority own no shares (about twelve million with significant overlap with the self-assessment crowd) and private medical insurance isn't an issue either.

 

[Captain Ice]

^IIRC, home ownership doesn't work the same over there either. Isn't it some sort of 99 year lease from the monarchy or Parliment or something like that over there? Here, we own the house and land outright at the end of the mortgage.

 

[JoeZhang]

^IIRC, home ownership doesn't work the same over there either. Isn't it some sort of 99 year lease from the monarchy or Parliment or something like that over there? Here, we own the house and land outright at the end of the mortgage.

Depends on the property - most houses are freehold, flats are leasehold but they are generally at least 99 years.